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Postmenopausal women have unprotected ocular surface, calculation shows
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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A method of calculating the tear film’s protection of the ocular surface suggests that postmenopausal women are at greater risk for dry eye than premenopausal women, according to a poster presentation here.
K.A. Wilcox, MD of the Schepens Eye Research Institute, and colleagues conducted a study in which they calculated the ocular protection index (OPI) of 58 women diagnosed with dry eye. Their study is described in a poster here at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting.
The OPI is calculated by dividing a subject’s tear breakup time by her interblink interval. An OPI of less than 1 indicates that the subject’s eye is unprotected by the tear film for at least some amount of time between each blink.
The subjects underwent ophthalmic examinations including visual acuity, blink rate, tear breakup time (TBUT) and fluorescein staining.
The OPI was determined for each patients and compared between the pre- and postmenopausal patients. The researchers found that the mean OPI in premenopausal subjects (n=20) was 1.29, and the mean OPI in postmenopausal subjects (n=38) was 0.69. The difference was statistically significant (P =0.02.)